Today may be August 16, but we are also currently smack in the middle of the first ever Awgest, a month-long celebration of AWGE, an esoteric, multi-platform project from ASAP Rocky and his ASAP Mob crew. On its official website, the AWGE collective of artists specifically refuses to reveal the meaning behind the acronym (or if it is even indeed an acronym), and slings a multifaceted array of media and merch, including t-shirts and hats that the ASAP crew’s ravenous fans have completely bought out just halfway through the Awgest festivities.

The Harlem, New York-based rap crew has completely locked down an entire month of the year with an onslaught of new music from each of its members, with a collaborative project, The Cozy Tapes, Vol. 2: Too Cozy on the way. Such a thorough and all-encompassing marketing effort is eerily similar to one that took place beginning nearly 25 years, and that’s why I feel 100% comfortable in making the following comparison: ASAP Mob is the 2017 Wu-Tang Clan.

For historical reference: The Wu-Tang Clan is a hip-hop group from Staten Island, New York City, originally composed of East Coast rappers RZA, GZA, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, and Masta Killa. Cappadonna later became an official member of the group, with the release of their second LP, Victory, the culmination of the first five-year wave that included the solo debut of practically every original member that was started by Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) their first album as a group.

The Wu-Tang Clan was assembled in the early 1990s with RZA as the de facto leader and the group’s producer, who assembled the uniquely creative unit of disparate, yet similarly idiosyncratic rap personalities. RZA famously negotiated the contract with Loud/RCA that allowed each member to record solo albums with other labels. They remain one of the most popular rap groups ever to this day.

The Wu-Tang Clan was originally tied together by a mutual interest in kung-fu movies and comic books, gritty, hard-hitting beats, witty-yet-abstruse lyrics (almost to the point of incoherence), and similarly grimy, ghetto-inspired aesthetics. They created a complicated, almost impenetrable mythology around themselves, including their own obscure slang and references, complete with multiple superhero-inspired aliases for each member. For example, Method Man was also Tical, but he was also Johnny Blaze, a reference to the Fantastic Four character known as The Human Torch.

However, despite the group’s recondite presentation and convoluted rhymes, they resonated so much with rap fans that they had soon created a rap empire that included not just a clothing line, Wu Wear, but also their own video game, Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style, a book that decoded some of the more complex aspects of Wu-related ephemera, and a small universe of spin-off groups and affiliates such as Killah Beez, Deadly Venoms, and Killah Priest, among others.

Similarly, the ASAP Mob is a collective of rappers, record producers, music video directors and fashion designers, who share similar interests in music, fashion, style and art, mainly consisting of New York-based rappers, many of whom carry the “ASAP” moniker, such as ASAP Rocky, ASAP Ferg, ASAP Twelvyy, ASAP Nast and ASAP Ant. There is an in-house record producer, much like RZA for the Wu, in ASAP Ty Beats, who produced several songs for his ASAP Mob cohorts, most notably Rocky’s solo debut single “Peso” — the song that first brought national attention to Rocky and the collective as a whole. Likewise, they were brought together by a single, distinctive visionary who became the glue that held them together, the late ASAP Yams, who doubled as the group’s manager and “creative director” when he was alive.

In August 2012, the collective released their first full-length project together, a mixtape titled Lords Never Worry, and followed up four years later with the first volume of The Cozy Tapes, Friends. Rocky joined the group after its original resolution in 2006, but much like RZA for the Wu-Tang, became the focal point and unofficial center of the ASAP solar system when his mixtape, Live.Love.A$AP, skyrocketed him and the crew to fame. Just like RZA, he also used his newfound platform to elevate his cohorts when he signed a record deal with Sony Music Entertainment worth $3 million that allowed for $1.3 million to fund A$AP Worldwide, along with A&R and executive producer ASAP Yams. This time around, RCA had the foresight to keep the disparate parts of the collective home to reap the eventual profits of their solo successes.

Just like Wu-Tang Clan, the Mob has become as well-known for their endeavors outside of music as for their respective rap releases — the aforementioned AWGE website among them — ironically using the blueprint laid out for them by the Clan two decades previously. Also mimicking the Clan, whether intentionally or not, there is a unity with the ASAP Mob of aesthetic and philosophy, the names being the most obvious example. Where every Wu member got a comic character along with their own unique monikers, ASAP Mob flips it, creating a through-line with the “ASAP” prefix, but then there’s ASAP Ferg going by “Hood Pope.” They too, derive from the gritty streets of New York and value densely-packed, multi-syllabic rhyme schemes peppered with esoteric references and in-jokes — for instance, Rocky’s insistence on referring to himself as “pretty Flacko.”

They likewise are united by a common, influential figure in ASAP Yams, who has become a sort of guardian angel of the group, receiving executive production credits on each of their releases. The members are slowly but steadily rolling out solo projects that highlight their individuality, such as the recently released 12 by ASAP Twelvyy, while still maintaining the underpinnings that held together their group projects. They are also amassing their own constellation of like-minded creatives, such as Atlanta’s Playboi Carti and members of the AWGE project, who include famed hip-hop jeweler Ben Baller.

There are differences between the crews, however, starting with the fact the ASAP Mob is splitting a much different hip-hop pie in a much-evolved hip-hop marketplace. The days of one or two groups holding near ubiquity are long-dead; while the Mob has some of the most staunch supporters in rap music today, they’re just one collective among many, and so are resigned to serving a fervent but smaller fraction of the divided landscape rather than aiming for world takeover. Likewise, their affiliates have stronger personal brands than just “ASAP Mob spinoff,” which makes them both less dependent on the parent group for success and more successful than, say, Killarmy or Ice Water, Inc.

Their predilection toward codeine-infused, Houston-aping, chopped-and-screwed beats over RZA’s looped-up, dissonant soul samples rankles many in the “real hip-hop/bring New York back” establishment. And despite their popularity, they have yet to be featured in their own video game, or make individual appearances in other games such as Def Jam: Fight For NY, which made Raekwon, Ghostface, and Method Man playable characters (to be fair, Electronic Arts hasn’t released an installment in their Def Jam fighting game series since 2007’s Def Jam: Icon. The time is ripe for a roster update, right?).

Those caveats aside, it’s genuinely dope to see how hip-hop (and pop culture at large, but this is a hip-hop site, dang it) goes in cycles. As much as some hate to admit that the culture is not just alive, well, healthy, and thriving, if they were to scratch the surface they would see just how similar 2017 really is to 1997. Everything old is new again, and everything new is just history repeating itself.

While my generation certainly had its share of knotty-head, gold-capped-toothed, charismatic underdogs from the street, a side-by-side comparison reveals that the tradition still stands strong. New York hip-hop, for all the consternation of a certain type of fan, is absolutely in good hands with the ASAP Mob crew, who continue to hold the torch for the grainy, do-it-yourself-and-keep-it-ghetto aesthetic popularized so long ago by nine guys who changed the name of their Staten Island home to “Shaolin.”

Now all we need is an ASAP Mob fighting game. Seriously, someone make that happen.

It was this last offense that was most egregious to more than one of the dismissed jurors. In a transcript of the jury selection process posted by Harper’s, at least two of the potential jurors specifically cited Once Upon A Time In Shaolin as their reason for maintaining his guilt, for instance, Juror No. 59:

THE COURT: All right. I’m going to excuse you. Juror Number 59, come on up.JUROR NO. 59: Your Honor, totally he is guilty and in no way can I let him slide out of anything because —THE COURT: Okay. Is that your attitude toward anyone charged with a crime who has not been proven guilty?JUROR NO. 59: It’s my attitude toward his entire demeanor, what he has done to people.THE COURT: All right. We are going to excuse you, sir.JUROR NO. 59: And he disrespected the Wu-Tang Clan.

Not to be outdone, Juror No. 144 provided their thoughts on the matter:

THE COURT: Well, I’m going to excuse you. Juror Number 144, tell us what you have heard.JUROR NO. 144: I heard through the news of how the defendant changed the price of a pill by up-selling it. I heard he bought an album from the Wu-Tang Clan for a million dollars.THE COURT: The question is, have you heard anything that would affect your ability to decide this case with an open mind. Can you do that?JUROR NO. 144: I don’t think I can because he kind of looks like a dick.

These responses, and the resultant judgement against Shkreli despite these jurors’ dismissal, prove the age-old adage: “The Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothin’ to f*ck with.” Shkreli faces up to 45 years in prison.

]]>http://uproxx.com/realtalk/martin-shkreli-wu-tang-juror/feed/0wu-tang-clan-the-wKanye West Has Been Nominated For A Best Design Award For His ‘Pablo’ Tour Merchhttp://uproxx.com/realtalk/kanye-west-pablo-tour-merch-design-award/
http://uproxx.com/realtalk/kanye-west-pablo-tour-merch-design-award/#commentsWed, 16 Aug 2017 18:32:31 +0000http://uproxx.com/?p=400748513

Now, the tour merchandise from Life Of Pablo has been nominated for London’s Design Museum’s Beazley Design Of The Year award, which seeks to honor the world’s best designs in six separate categories: architecture, digital, graphics, fashion, product and transport. The Design Museum expanded on the nomination on their website, writing:

“From August 19th — 21st, 2016, Kanye West in partnership with Bravado, opened 21 pop-up shops in various locations around the world to sell products tied to West’s latest album, The Life Of Pablo. This was the first simultaneous, global pop-up event, spanning the U.S, Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia. Each temporary store carried a broad line of Kanye’s Pablo merchandise as well as limited edition designs exclusive to that city. The venues were announced 24 hours before they opened in each city, with the British pop-up located in Old Street.”

Tour merchandise ranged from the customary concert T-shirts, emblazoned with “Pablo” in gold Gothic lettering to vintage army jackets with the same. Kanye’s Yeezy clothing brand also takes some of the same design cues, embracing the olive drab color scheme from army jacket, and loose fit of the tees to form a unique look instantly recognizable as Kanye’s signature style.

The ASAP Mob first came on the scene using guerrilla-style visuals and marketing tactics, so its only right that their late night debut of “Feels So Good” on The Tonight Show would harken back to that era. It’s an aesthetic they still embrace, with Rocky’s “RAF” video being modeled on a deconstructed fashion show and shot in a low-resolution, VHS tape-resembling, old school visual style. Instead of the typical, “stand on stage and rap” late night performance, the Harlem crew begins their set backstage, with a handheld camera capturing their throwback rap-style performances as they take turns rapping into the camera as they charge towards the stage. They appeared in support of their latest release The Cozy Tapes, Vol. 2: Too Cozy, releasing August 25 on RCA Records.

The ASAP Mob will, however, probably be rocking a more traditional set for their Camp Flog Gnaw appearance later this year, as they’ve been announced as part of the most stacked and inclusive lineup for the festival since its inception. The ASAP/Odd Future connection remains as strong as ever, with Tyler The Creator adding Rocky to his eerie “Who Dat Boy” video just a couple months ago.

The band also released the music video for “Feels So Good” to coincide with the performance, and it similarly uses a grainy, low-res aesthetic to evoke the do-it-yourself, low-budget rap videos of old. You can check that out below.

Meanwhile, SZA’s sexy, slow-burner “The Weekend,” is a clear standout from her album CTRL, having become a favorite for other singers to cover, and Khalid is no exception. While Miguel opted for an acapella rendition at a local Los Angeles art museum, Khalid puts his own twist on the song, with a guitarist providing an upbeat, acoustic backdrop for his slightly faster version, filmed in what appears to be his tour bus. The fans are feeling it as well; the tweet featuring the video is well on its way to 100,000 likes and has over 43,000 retweets. It’s been interesting to note that SZA’s ostensibly female-empowering CTRL has resonated so strongly among male artists, but that’s good music for you. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, or why, sometimes you just have to sing.

Before there was the Metal Faced Villain, MF Doom, there was Zev Love X of the funky, afrocentric KMD hip-hop group. Along with his brother DJ Subroc, Zev Love created songs that focused on racism and black empowerment in a comical manner. But when Subroc was killed in a tragic traffic collision, Zev fell into a deep depression and off the hip-hop map for several years, eventually returning with a new, mysteriously charismatic persona as the deeply strange but engaging MF Doom.

Since then, Doom has worked with the best of the best in rap, from Black Thought on the Danger Doom throwaway “Mad Nice” to the late, great Sean Price on “Negus” from Doom’s current 15-week collaborative project with Adult Swim, The Missing Notebook Rhymes, a collection of 15 weeks of new music.

As part of this collaboration, Doom is digging deep in the archives, revealing the first official KMD song in over 25 years. “True Lightyears,” which you can listen to above, will double as the first single from the forthcoming KMD album Crack In Time (to be released by Metalface/Nature Sounds). It remains to be seen how the album will work without Subroc, but for fans of a certain age it’s still worth get excited about.

The collaboration with similarly reclusive Five Percenter emcee Jay Electronica was previously teased in live performances, but today marks the first official release of the track many fans of cerebral, intricate rhymes and wordplay have been waiting for. Only two weeks into The Missing Notebook releases, MF Doom is proving he still has the ability to surprise by going back to his roots. We’ll see what’s in store for the next 13 weeks.

It looks like Kim Kardashian is in hot water yet again for making insensitive statements that prove just how sheltered and privileged she really is. In a video posted to her Snapchat (and of course saved for posterity by Twitter users), Kardashian stated that her fans “are totally hating on Jeffree Star for being honest about (her) struggle swatches, but because of his remarks, (she is) learning from the best!” She also lamented how much she hates when people bring up her own past, and stated that he had apologized and learned from his “mistakes.” Even though she accepted his apology, it appears the people most affected by his statements do not.

However despite her adamant declaration that she does not defend anyone racist, it’s pretty difficult to make the case that Star has actually made any significant adjustments in his behaviors and attitudes when some of the statements he previously made included nuggets like “I win by having diamond rims, and you win by being a poor Mexican,” and “She’s a fucking n*****! You’re a n*****, you f*cking ugly-ass b*tch! F*ck you, ho!”

Of course, the mother of two black children by husband Kanye West — with more on the way — seems to have failed to see the inherent hypocrisy in coming to Star’s defense, but Twitter was right there to remind her. A flurry of tweets from outraged users was there to remind her of the things he said, and that the past isn’t something you should just “forget about,” but something that you should actively try to learn from. While she did apologize for making the comments in another video, time will tell if she learns from this particular experience herself.

Leikeli47 has released the third single from her upcoming debut album, Wash & Set, along with the clever album cover art, featuring the masked rapper lounging on her couch with her teddy bear — who is also masked — and her hair up in rollers. “2nd fiddle” debuted today as Zane Lowe’s World Record on his Beats 1 show.

Each of Leikeli47’s previous outings from Wash & Set, “Miss Me,” and “OMC” has come with a visual featuring the mysterious rapper’s trademark mask and signature New York visuals, so don’t be too surprised if the third single, “2nd Fiddle,” also receives the video treatment in short order.

Despite her rugged costume and street-warrior bearing, each of Leikeli47’s previous songs has more prominently featured lyrics about relationships, and “2nd Fiddle” is no exception. She raps with her trademark ferocity, “If you think you’re gonna string me along, you got another thing coming … I ain’t never played second fiddle for Nathan.” She also flips it up, displaying some mean vocals on a bridge that quotes from Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby, relating to the trademark line from the protagonist of that movie: “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” She adds her own flavor to the classic comedic line, “You can all kiss my ass.”

Leikeli47 will be performing her new material live for the first time on tonight at Baby’s Alright in New York. Fans can also check her out on August 26th at Afropunk Festival in Brooklyn and on September 3rd at Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle. Wash & Set is due to release September 8, via Hardcover/RCA.

Red Bull Music Academy has announced the inaugural Red Bull Music Academy Festival Los Angeles. Taking place throughout October, the month-long program will celebrate the musical and cultural diversity of Los Angeles, from conversations with creative trailblazers to concerts and club nights that showcase the ever-evolving sounds of the city.

Some of the events will include a synth orchestra powered by one hundred LA muscle cars and their sound systems and a new audio-visual show from shapeshifting producer Arca in collaboration with Taran Allen. Multi-instrumentalist St. Vincent will also be performing a concept so secret, it couldn’t be revealed at the kick-off event.

Personally, I’ll be looking forward the reunion of Uncle Jamm’s Army, a collective of funk DJs from the ’80s that included future NWA affiliates Egyptian Lover and Arabian Prince, which will be headlined by a performance and lecture from West Coast gangsta rap pioneer Ice-T.

The festival also spotlights the connection between Mexican metal bands and LA’s Latinx metal bands with the three-stage Todo Es Metal, and presents a special club night together with Rail Up, the collective regularly making LA dance floors quake with sounds from the African and Latinx musical diaspora.

Another cool high-concept event will be Diggin’ in the Carts, bringing legendary Japanese video game composers Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima to the stage to perform together for the first time ever. Although the names may not be familiar, if you’ve played Streets Of Rage or Sonic The Hedgehog, you’ll recognize their work, which has influenced both dance music and hip-hop, being extensively sampled by both.

In a profile of Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom for Wired, he revealed that in testing the DeepText system to figure out how to filter derogatory and offensive comments from the service, the team in charge put several bars of Kanye West’s “Famous” through to see if the machine could learn about context in filtering possible service violations.

DeepText is based on a machine learning concept called word embeddings. When the system encounters a new word, it tries to deduce meaning from the other words around it. If a watermelon emoji is always surrounded by right-wing memes, that means something. The more data the classification engine analyzes, the smarter it gets. Like us, it learns over time; unlike us, it doesn’t get exhausted or depressed reading the word cuck 72 times in a row.

While the machine is showing positive results so far, testing shows that it still has trouble with certain concepts, especially when some cultural barrier changes the meaning. For instance, the system blocked even British uses of the word “fag,” which is slang for cigarette, and had issues when Kanye lyrics were quoted. The infamous “Famous” line “For my Southside n*ggas that know me best / I feel like me and Taylor still might have sex / Why, I made that b*tch famous,” got blocked every time but “You left your fridge open / somebody just took a sandwich,” was perfectly fine according to DeepText.

Instagram hopes that eventually the system will be able to automatically filter mean comments without also deleting critical, thoughtful discussion on the platform. In the meantime, users can still manually filter certain language or emojis, which is why you see significantly fewer snake emojis under Taylor Swift’s posts. Maybe one day, we’ll see a kinder, gentler internet.

On Monday night’s The Tonight Show, Emmy-nominated actor and rapper Riz Ahmed (also known as Riz MC) took to the stage for an impromptu, acapella performance of ten year-old song “Sour Times,” an address to Western listeners that breaks down so-called Islamic terrorism, but is just as applicable to the wave of white supremacist thought that is currently overtaking American cities like Charlottesville, VA.

Riz has always had a strong political streak in his music; most recently, he was featured on Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton Mixtape track “Immigrants,” dismantling stereotypes that seem all too poignant in the current climate. As a member of Swet Shop Boys alongside Heems and Redhino, he also tackled racial profiling with another spine-tingling late night performance of their song “T5” with additional verses for The Late Show.

Coming from Riz’s 2011 LP MICroscope, “Sour Times” is his lament that “I’m losing my religion to tomorrow’s headlines,” and his efforts to counteract stereotypes that Islam is a violent religion, instead blaming the rise of extremist terrorism on the same things that have set Americans against each other in the last few years: Poverty and lack of education.

“The truth is Al Qaeda doesn’t really exist / There ain’t no super villain planning these attacks from some base /
The truth is so much scarier and harder to face / See, there’s thousands of angry young men that are lost / Sidelined in the economy, a marginal cost / They think there’s no point in putting ballots up in the box / They got no place in this system, and no faith in its cogs / They’re easy targets, that be getting brainwashed by these knobs / Who say that spilling innocent blood is pleasing a god / Well, it sounds good when you don’t see no justice or jobs.”

Check out his performance above, and listen to the original version of “Sour Times” here.

Way, way back in 1998, Sprite recruited a supergroup of five rap acts to save hip-hop — and the universe — from the evil Emperor Zarkon in a series of ads for the soda that further ingrained the company into the fabric of the culture. Based on the popular 1980s space adventure cartoon Voltron, the five ads cast the rappers as the pilots of the titular robot’s five component lions, fighting to save the future of the music from an incursion of evil space aliens with the power of dope raps and lemon-lime carbonated sugar water. The Goodie Mob, Fat Joe, Mack 10, Common, and Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force came together to rock monochromatic fits, represent the four corners of the hip-hop map, and continue Sprite’s streak of slanging soda to the streets with legendary acts like Pete Rock & CL Smooth and Nas and AZ.

That wasn’t the last time the mighty transforming, lion-composite robot was resurrected; last Monday, binge-streaming service Netflix released the third season of their reboot of the series, Voltron: Legendary Defender. In honor of the near twenty years that have passed since the previous incarnation of the hip-hop Voltron Force, I’m doing a fun thought experiment, listing out which rappers of the modern era would best represent the world-saving pilots of the multi-colored robot lions were Sprite to remake the ad series today. The rules are simple: Each rapper selected must correlate to the representative in the original ads; the blue lion will be the South, the green lion, the East Coast, and so forth.

Check out my picks below, and add your own in the comments.

Blue Lion — The South

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In the original commercials, the blue lion was piloted by those purveyors of good old fashioned Southern hospitality, The Goodie Mob. An Atlanta-based rap group that bubbled up from the Dirty South underground (and actually coined the phrase for the first time on record) with hits like “Cell Therapy” and “Soul Food,” The Goodie Mob consisted of members Cee-Lo, Khujo, T-Mo, and Big Gipp. They, along with Outkast, were among the first two groups in rap to prove that “the South got something to say.”

So, who better to pilot the blue lion in 2017 and represent the finest Atlanta has to offer than Migos? Quavo, Takeoff, and Offset have proven that they are clever, insightful, and Atlanta to the core, whether on club knockers like “Bad N Boujee,” or trap staples such as “T-Shirt.” They’ve got a way with wordplay, and incidents such as their recent altercation with Joe Budden are more than enough proof that despite their precipitous rise to fame, they’re still about that action, ready to remove cufflinks with anybody from rap curmudgeons to Robeasts.

Yellow Lion — The West Coast

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The yellow lion of 1998 flew into battle with Los Angeles stalwart Mack 10 at the helm. Hailing from Inglewood, California, Mack 10 was an important addition to the lion team at the time, along with Chicago rapper Common, as the prevailing theme was of hip-hop coming together and putting aside old rivalries to overcome a common enemy for the good of all. For a goodly portion of the ‘90s, Common and Westside Connection, Mack 10’s group with fellow Angelinos WC and Ice Cube, had beef with Com stemming from his 1994 Resurrection, “I Used To Love H.E.R.,” which they perceived to be an attack on the West Coast. The Hoo-Bangin’ Records label chief had made his bones as a non-stop representer of the West Coast on tracks like “Foe Life” and “Bow Down,” with Westside Connection.

His successor couldn’t be anyone other than Long Beach’s own Vince Staples. Aside from Vince’s well-documented love of Sprite (and his pre-existing endorsement deal with the brand), very few rappers go all in on representing the West than him. While he may take some issue with the color provided, as his affiliation demands a more muddy shade of bandana, nobody bangs harder on the Coast than the kid who named several tracks on his major label debut after his neighborhood set at Ramona Park. Vince’s fiery raps prove he’s “War Ready” to take on Zarkon’s troops.

Red Lion — The Midwest

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Common — formerly known as Common Sense — was the most obvious choice for Midwestern rapper in 1998, largely because there weren’t too many other well-known representatives of that particular portion of the US then. It was more or less hip-hop’s last frontier, with a vibrant underground scene comprised of acts like Twista, Slum Village, Tech N9ne, and Rhymesayers that hadn’t yet bubbled over to mainstream consciousness. Common was still a great pick though, as in ‘98, he was coming off his most commercially successful album at the time, One Day It’ll All Make Sense, and was well-known as a creative, intelligent, unique mind in alternative rap.

The obvious pick for his replacement is Chance the Rapper, the biggest name in Chicago rap, but slow down. After all, in the intervening decades, Midwestern rap’s footprint has grown to encompass cities like Minnesota and Detroit, and even Chicago’s once-burgeoning indie scene has exploded outward into numerous different offshoots like Drill. Despite strong showings from all over the region, the rapper who would most likely have the most fun with his role as a member of the Voltron Force is Big Sean, whose tongue-twisting, experimental raps provide a fun stylistic diversity to the group along with his cheeky wordplay bringing needed levity to the proceedings. Besides, his clean cut image would probably sell more cans than the haunted-looking Vic Mensa or Chief Keef, and spare Chance any more weird, anti-corporate backlash.

Green Lion — The East Coast

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Fat Joe, believe it or not, was once looked upon as one of New York rap’s ruggedest representatives. As a member of underground, hyper-lyrical Diggin’ In The Crates crew alongside Showbiz & AG, Lord Finesse, and the late, great Big L, Joe was one of the last torchbearers of the dusty-breakbeat-sampling, boom-bap era of rap, but also one of the first to recognize the shift in the landscape and adjust accordingly. While Joe’s big breakout wouldn’t come until 2001’s Jealous Ones Still Envy with pop-rap jingles like “What’s Luv?” with Ashanti, in 1998 he was still three albums deep, with Don Cartagena being his latest calling card by the time Sprite came calling. At the time, he was still rocking with Violator, rapping over DJ Premier beats, and had just recently discovered multi-syllable slinging, soon-to-be superstar Big Punisher.

So it’s only right that his seat in the green lion go to one of the biggest beneficiaries of his time in hip-hop’s limelight, Cardi B. While the one female in the group has traditionally piloted the blue lion, for the purposes of keeping our regional replacements rule in place, we’ll make an exception. Quite simply, Cardi isthe sound of New York right now, with her “Bodak Yellow” ringing off equally at home and outside of the five boroughs, much like the Don Cartagena himself before her. While she’s not exactly a D.I.T.C.-quality rapper, those skills will likely come with time (and Joe wasn’t really a standout in the group either), and D.I.T.C. isn’t exactly all the rage right now anyway. The only member of Love & Hip-Hop to actually chart on Billboard’s Hot 100 isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and Sprite would be smart to scoop her up for our hypothetical remake.

Black Lion — The Head

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This one’s tricky. In the original campaign, finding a rap forefather was as simple as looking back twenty years and seeing that no one had as great of an impact as Afrika Bambaataa and The Soulsonic Force, with their electro-rap bushwhacking a trail for others to follow. However, that was twenty years ago and now we have another twenty years of rap history to sort through (and some rather unfortunate accusations that paint the onetime legendary godfather of rap as more of a dirty uncle in hindsight). It’s not as easy as acknowledging “Planet Rock” as one of the most important records in hip-hop culture anymore.

So, while looking for the perfect beat, we have to ask: Who has done as much for hip-hop in an equivalent sense since 1998? Only one person can be said to have moved from the forefront of rap’s star players to one of its biggest front office operators, and that person is none other than the business, man himself, Jay-Z. In the final original ad, it’s Bambaataa who rallies the battered troops to form Voltron and take out the rampaging Robeast, rapping: “It’s time for us to unite” with peace between the disparate regions becomes the overarching tenet of the Voltron Force’s coming together. In much the same way, Jay has become the elder statesman of rap, doling out words of wisdom and admonishments to set aside petty grievances and ill-advised hustles on 4:44. As the smartest man in rap, there is no one better to form the head of our hip-hop Voltron and lead the charge into the next two decades of rap adventures.

If you’re looking for drug use in Jamila Woods’ dreamy music video for “LSD,” you may end up disappointed. There’s nothing here but good, clean family fun, courtesy of Ashley Huicochea, a recent graduate of Prosser Career Academy in Chicago who wrote the treatment as part of Woods’ challenge to Chicago Public School students. She won and shadowed the directors (Sam Bailey + Vincent Martell) during the shoot, along with six other finalists who shadowed key crew members.

“LSD” comes from Heavn, Woods’ 2016 debut EP, a self-caring, self-praising, gorgeous little piece of spiritual R&B in the vein of Solange’s A Seat At The Table which may have been overlooked, but is still receiving support in the form of singles like “LSD” and “Holy.”

Meanwhile, Chance, Jamila, Common, Vic Mensa, and other Chicago artists were prominently featured in last year’s Billboard documentary Fighting for Chicago: The New Dissidents, which details artists’ activist efforts to improve education and quality of life for CPS students and the youth growing up in a Windy City that has seemingly forgotten about them.

Heavn will be receiving its first physical release via Jagjaguwar/Closed Sessions on October 6 of this year, and is now available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music for the first time today. A full list of “LSD” contest winners can be found below.

Cardi, who is Dominican and Trinidadian, debuted a Spanish language version of “Bodak Yellow” at the Dominican Day Parade in Manhattan, telling fans that the full version will be out later this week, tweeting, “Drops This Friday Aug 18 Everywhere. #waitonit.” According to Remezcla, the remix features fellow New York-raised Dominican rapper Messiah El Artista. Both artists were on the La Mega 97.9 float when the track was premiered at the parade.

“Bodak Yellow” is currently No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest-charting single by an unaccompanied female rapper since 2014’s “Anaconda.” It’s no wonder Nicki stans are currently in Cardi’s grill regarding her celebratory Instagram posts. As proven by her knockout performance at the BET Awards afterparty show, and her sudden appearance alongside every major rapper in the game, including Drake, the Atlantic-signed sparkplug is showing no signs of slowing down yet.

With the remix of “Bodak” dropping this week, it may just be time to brush up on your Spanish so you can sing along when this inevitably smashes the dance floor at your local Labor Day parties.

]]>http://uproxx.com/realtalk/cardi-b-bodak-yellow-spanish-remix/feed/3cardi-b-dominican.jpgDave Chappelle And Dylan From ‘Making The Band’ Recreate The Unforgettable Sketch That Made Both Famoushttp://uproxx.com/realtalk/dave-chappelle-dylan-making-the-band-chappelles-show/
http://uproxx.com/realtalk/dave-chappelle-dylan-making-the-band-chappelles-show/#commentsMon, 14 Aug 2017 18:36:20 +0000http://uproxx.com/?p=400743826

Ask any hip-hop or comedy heads of a certain age who their top five emcees in rap are, and eventually, you’re going to get a quote from comedian Dave Chappelle’s Comedy Central sketch show:

“Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, and Dyan!”

Chappelle, whose star-studded New York Radio City Music Hall shows are rapidly becoming a thing of legend, met up with the Grenadan rapper at the House of Vans in New York City on Friday night, and the moment was captured forever on Dylan’s Instagram, with the pair quoting from the beloved sketch, right down to the “Spit hot fiya!”

Chappelle’s famous friendships always make for entertaining TV or insightful interviews, but this moment is one fans have been waiting for since the comedian famously lampooned MTV’s Making The Band, playing a tyrannical parody of both Da Band’s domineering executive producer, P. Diddy, and its most bombastic member, Dylan Dili.

In the sketch, Chappelle, as Dylan, asks, “Who are the five best rappers of all time?” before giving himself credit for all five spots. The rapper himself had no hard feelings about the parody, and Chappelle credited him in the Instagram video for making Dave famous. Dave also took time at the end of the video to help Dylan plug his new album. Check it out below: